Panhellenes at Methone: Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone, Macedonia (ca 700 BCE)

381 Pages·2017·3.474 MB·English

by  Clay, Jenny Strauss, Malkin, Irad, Tziphopulos, Ioannes Z.

Panhellenes at Methone
Trends in Classics –
Supplementary Volumes

|
Edited by
Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos

Scientific Committee
Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck
Claude Calame · Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison
Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter · Christina Kraus
Giuseppe Mastromarco · Gregory Nagy
Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone
Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann
Volume 44
Panhellenes at
Methone

|
Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone,
Macedonia (ca. 700 BCE)
Edited by Jenny Strauss Clay, Irad Malkin and
Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos
ISBN 978-3-11-050127-8
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-051569-5
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-051467-4
ISSN 1868-4785

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at
http://dnb.dnb.de.

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Preface

Excavations, ongoing since 2003–04, have begun to bring to light ancient
Methone in the southern tip of the Haliacmon River Delta, immediately north of
modern-day Agathoupolis, ca. 35 kilometers southwest of Thessaloniki. Accord-
ing to the ancient sources, Methone was established by colonists from Eretria in
Euboea during the second colonization period (800–500 BCE) and is the oldest
colony of the southern Greeks on the northern shores of the Aegean. By the end
of the 8th century, with its safest harbor in the Thermaic Gulf, Methone became
a chief commercial and industrial centre.
Methone occupies two hills, which were located by the sea before sedi-
mentations of the rivers Axios, Loudias, and especially the nearby Haliacmon
pushed the coastline ca. 500 meters away from the site. On the eastern, lower
hill habitation already starts by the late Neolithic (5200 BCE) and continues
throughout the Bronze Age (3000–1100 BCE), while a Late Bronze Age (1400–
1100 BCE) cemetery has been located on the western, higher hill. During the
Early Iron Age (1100–700 BCE) habitation extends on both hills, and the finds
from the eastern hill confirm that colonists from Eretria settled in Methone
around 733 BCE.
Unique and so far unprecedented for Macedonia are the pots and potsherds
unearthed from a rectangular pit of 3.50 × 4.50 meters wide and over 11 meters
in depth, apparently used as an apothetes. The greatest majority of these sherds
dates to ca. 700 BCE, and 191 of them, recently pieced together, bear inscrip-
tions, graffiti, and (trade)marks inscribed, incised, scratched, and (rarely) pain-
ted.
The Centre for the Greek Language, a private legal entity under the auspices
of the Ministry of Education, Research, and Religious Affairs, under John Ka-
zazis and Antonios Rengakos, undertook the implementation of the project, co-
financed by the European Union (European Social Fund) and the Greek State:
“Ancient Greek Dialects of vital importance for the continuity of the Greek lan-
guage and the cultural tradition – A documentation project for the support of
the curricula in the Universities’ Departments of Language and Literature” –
Horizontal Action, priority axes 1-2-3 of the Operational Programme “Education
and Lifelong Learning” in accordance with the decision of accession No 24885/
30.11.2010 of the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs.
Within the framework of this Project, the Centre for the Greek Language un-
dertook the publication of the 191 incised sherds from Methone, dated to ca.
700 BCE, which appeared as: Matthaios Bessios, Yannis Tzifopoulos, and An-
tonis Kotsonas, Μεθώνη Πιερίας Ι: Επιγραφές, χαράγματα και εμπορικά σύμβολα
στη γεωμετρική και αρχαϊκή κεραμική από το ‘Υπόγειο’ της Μεθώνης Πιερίας στη
VI | Preface
Μακεδονία, Thessaloniki (2012) (online: http://ancdialects.greeklanguage.gr/
studies/methoni-pierias-i).
Also, within the framework of the same Project, the Centre for the Greek
Language entrusted to Jenny Strauss Clay, Antonios Rengakos, and Yannis
Tzifopoulos the organization of an international interdisciplinary conference,
which took place in Thessaloniki (June 8–10, 2012), under the title: “Panhel-
lenes at Methone: graphê in Late Geometric and Proto-archaic Methone, Mace-
donia (ca. 700 BCE).”
We would like to thank all invited speakers, chairs, and participants for an
eventful and “out of the ordinary” conference, which raised many stimulating
ideas and generated lively responses and discussion (in addition to the authors
and editors of this volume, in alphabetic order): Ioannis Akamatis, Stelios An-
dreou, Lucia Athanassaki, Ewen Bowie, Albio Cesare Cassio, Stella Drougou,
Giorgos Giannakis, Miltiadis Hatzopoulos, Richard Hunter, John Kazazis, Anne
Kenzelmann Pfyffer, Barbara Kowalzig, Irene Lemos, Angelos Matthaiou, Ale-
xandros Mazarakis Ainian, Franco Montanari, Aliki Moustaka, Chryssoula
Paliadeli, Nikolaos Papazarkadas, Katerina Rhomiopoulou, Petros Themelis,
Thierry Theurillat, Rosalind Thomas, Michalis Tiverios, Kyriakos Tsantsano-
glou, Manolis Voutiras, and Rudolph Wachter.
Because of the significance for archaeology, ancient history, literature, and
the study of the Greek dialects, the conference took the form of a round-table
discussion of these new ‘texts’ from Methone and their contexts; the major
themes and issues discussed were: Greek(s) in Macedonia and the Second Colo-
nization; trade and the earliest transport amphorae; the scripts of Methone and
the appearance of the alphabet; the dialect(s) of Methone and the Greek dia-
lects; contexts for the development of writing, ‘literacy’, and the literary begin-
nings (trade and economic factors, symposia and literary performances, Homer
and heroic/didactic poetry). The fourteen papers in this volume resulted from
the conference’s discussions, scrutinizing the finds from these different angles,
and have been thoroughly revised and a few written anew.
The conference’s success emphasized the need for further study of the finds
hitherto unearthed from excavations in Methone and was, therefore, instrumen-
tal in the resumption of excavations in 2014 with the cooperation of the Ephor-
ate of Antiquities of Pieria (Matthaios Bessios, Athena Athanassiadou, Kostas
Noulas and their team) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA,
John K. Papadopoulos, Sarah P. Morris and their team).
Much of the conference’s success was due to the assistance of departmental
colleagues, research assistants, both graduate and undergraduate students of
the Department of Philology at the Aristotle University, and the colleagues from
the Centre for the Greek Language.
Preface | VII
We are very much indebted to our co-organizer Professor Jenny Strauss
Clay, and also to the President of the Centre for the Greek Language Professor
Emeritus John Kazazis and his team for helping us run a successful conference.
A special debt of gratitude goes also to Franco Montanari, General Co-Editor
of Trends in Classics, for his constant interest and support, as well as to Profes-
sors Jenny Strauss Clay and Irad Malkin for accepting our invitation to serve as
editors.
Last but not least, at De Gruyter we would like to thank Katharina Legutke,
Sabina Dabrowski and Elisabeth Kempf for their efficiency and professionalism.

Antonios Rengakos and Yannis Tzifopoulos Thessaloniki, July 2016

Table of Contents

Preface | V

Jenny Strauss Clay, Irad Malkin and Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos
Introduction | 1

Part I: Graphê and Archaeology

Antonis Kotsonas, Evangelia Kiriatzi, Xenia Charalambidou, Maria Roumpou,
Noémi Suzanne Müller and Matthaios Bessios
Transport Amphorae from Methone: An Interdisciplinary Study of Production
and Trade ca. 700 BCE | 9

Nota Kourou
The Archaeological Background of the Earliest Graffiti and Finds
from Methone | 20

John K. Papadopoulos
To Write and to Paint: More Early Iron Age Potters’ Marks
in the Aegean | 36

Samuel Verdan
Counting on Pots? Reflections on Numerical Notations in
Early Iron Age Greece | 105

Alan Johnston
Texts and Amphoras in the Methone “Ypogeio” | 123

Part II: Graphê, Alphabet, Dialect, and Language

Richard Janko
From Gabii and Gordion to Eretria and Methone: the Rise of
the Greek Alphabet | 135

Francesca Dell’Oro
Alphabets and Dialects in the Euboean Colonies of Sicily and Magna Graecia
or What Could Have Happened in Methone | 165
X | Table of Contents
Roger D. Woodard
Alphabet and Phonology at Methone: Beginning a Typology of
Methone Alphabetic Symbols and an Alternative Hypothesis
for Reading Hακεσάνδρō | 182

Christina Skelton
Thoughts on the Initial Aspiration of HAKEΣANΔPO | 219

Anna Panayotou-Triantaphyllopoulou
The Impact of Late Geometric Greek Inscriptions from Methone on
Understanding the Development of Early Euboean Alphabet | 232

Julián Méndez Dosuna
Methone of Pieria: a Reassessment of Epigraphical Evidence
(with a Special Attention to Pleonastic Sigma) | 242

Part III: Graphê and Culture

Niki Oikonomaki
Local ‘Literacies’ in the Making: Early Alphabetic Writing and
Modern Literacy Theories | 261

Alexandra Pappas
Form Follows Function? Toward an Aesthetics of Early Greek Inscriptions
at Methone | 285

Marek Węcowski
Wine and the Early History of the Greek Alphabet. Early Greek
Vase-Inscriptions and the Symposion | 309

Bibliography and Abbreviations | 329
Notes on Contributors | 360
General Index | 365
Index Locorum | 374